Mozilla Releases Firefox 5 Beta

Posted on May 26, 2011 8:00 AM by Rob Williams

True to its word, Mozilla this week released an official beta version of Firefox 5, with the final build slated for release next month. Firefox 5 will mark the first release to be issued under Mozilla’s revised versioning scheme, and if all goes according to plan, we should still be seeing Firefox 7 before the end of the year.

In addition to releasing the Firefox 5 beta, Mozilla also recently launched its “Channel” page, which avails testers quick access to both the current beta, and also an “Aurora” build. Those builds are designed to include cutting-edge features that may not even be included in the current beta, but are meant to be more refined than a nightly release.

There are sure to be a fair number of features introduced with Firefox 5, but on Mozilla’s blog there are just two mentioned. These include a built-in updater that will allow people to switch between the monitoring and updating of stable or beta releases. For those who love using betas and always want to have the latest version, this is a great feature. The other introduction is experimental support for CSS3 animations.

Those interested in testing out either the beta or Aurora build can head on over to the Channel page, and those wanting to delve through the release notes,look no further than here.

After five weeks of testing on the Firefox Aurora channel, the next version of Firefox is ready for the beta channel. This release includes the Firefox channel switcher, performance and stability enhancements and support for the new CSS Animations standard to allow developers build more amazing Web experiences. The new Firefox channel switcher lets users move between Firefox Aurora, Beta and Release channels to test features at various levels of development, quality and polish.